


tenderly they turned to dust all that i adored

by Queen Bee (untakenbeepun)



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [4]
Category: Kaleidotrope (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Bad Things Happen Bingo Prompt: Trapped in a Burning Building, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Rescue, protective Drew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21686182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untakenbeepun/pseuds/Queen%20Bee
Summary: Harrison's dorm goes up in flames, with him trapped inside.
Relationships: Drew/Harrison (Kaleidotrope)
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1515029
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	tenderly they turned to dust all that i adored

**Author's Note:**

> Bad Things Happen Bingo Prompt: Trapped in a Burning Building

In retrospect, Drew should have expected that if any university was going to have a dorm building set on fire in a series of tropey and romantic misadventures, it was Sidlesmith University, the home of every romantic and lovable idiot this side of America.

He'd been in a literature class when he'd started to smell smoke and had looked out the window to discover the campus engulfed in it. Almost by magic, his phone had started to ring, and around when the fire alarm started to chime was when he'd started to panic. His thumbs were on his phone to check his texts as he stumbled out of the seminar room towards the fire assembly point, where people were already starting to form in lines. He craned his neck, trying to spot anyone he recognized, but in particular, a certain mop of pink hair.

He couldn't see anyone.

He pulled out his phone, flicking through missed calls from Hal, and dropped a text to Harrison.

_You alright?_

More people were beginning to pour out of the different buildings, a huge flood of people arriving from the library, carrying textbooks and laptops and looking haggard. He began to spot people in the crowd. There were Rosa and Sabrina, holding hands in the corner and sharing worried looks. He spotted Lovejoy and Stanwyck, too, and several other people that he recognized from the infamous sock hop.

Still no Harrison.

 _Don't panic,_ he told himself. _He could be anywhere._

But that was the problem. He could be _anywhere_ , and in this case, _anywhere_ included a burning building.

He dropped another text.

_Things are getting pretty crazy out here. Call me to let me know you're okay._

He did a mental run-through of Harrison's schedule. He had a class in the morning, Drew remembered that because he hadn't stayed the night because of it. A class early in the morning, and then a break before his next class. He was between classes right now. So, _where was he?_

Time to call.

Drew found Harrison's number and called, waiting with his heart hammering hard in his throat as he waited for the call to go through. He listened to it ring. And ring. And ring.

And then Harrison's voice: " _Hi! I'm not available right now, but please leave a message after the beep, and I'll get back to you!_ " 

"Harrison," Drew said into the voicemail, his voice coming out far more hoarse than he expected it to. "Where are you? There's smoke everywhere, I can't find you. One of the dorms got set on fire. Hell of a time to have your phone switched off."

The last part came out a lot more snappish that he meant it to and after he sent it through, he called again, listening to the voicemail message again.

"Sorry," he said, swallowing. "I didn't mean that. Just, let me know that you're okay as soon as you get this." 

He let the call go and put his phone in his pocket, drumming his leg up at down. People were beginning to get in lines just like they'd been taught in the fire drill, but there were a lot more panicked looks and worried faces than the last time they'd had a fire drill. This was real, and everyone knew it. Sidlesmith was filling up very fast with smoke.

"Drew!" a voice called out from the crowd and Drew's ears pricked, his head snapping up to see Hal pushing her way through the crowd to get to him, calling his name in desperation.

"Hal?" 

“Drew,” she yelled, pushing her away to him until she was at his side, her hands pressed on her knees breathlessly. “It’s Harrison’s dorm. Someone had candles lit and left them while they were in class. Whole building’s gone up.”

“Harrison,” was all Drew could manage to spit out. “Where’s… where’s Harrison?”

At this, Hal looked up, her face unnaturally pale. “We had a class together this morning,” she said, in between heavy breaths. “I asked if he wanted to get coffee, but, but—”

“But what, Hal?” Drew said.

Panic was filling his lungs. He wanted to scream. He wanted to shake Hal until she got all the words that she was trying to say out. Dread was filling his body, creeping up his back, seizing at his heart.

"He said - he said he was going to go back to his room for a nap," she said, hollow-voiced and pale-faced, looking like she wanted to throw up.

Drew didn't think. He was turning away from Hal before he could even register what he was doing, turning to run back towards the source of the smoke. Hal followed after, calling his name, but he didn't hear her. His legs felt like jelly, his lungs screaming at him, as he ran, and ran, raising a hand to shield his eyes from smoke as he pelted in the direction of Harrison's dorm, as fast as his legs could carry him.

"Drew!" Hal screamed as she chased after him, "you can't! you can't go in there! It's too dangerous!"

The blaze was fierce. The fire roared as it engulfed the dorm, hungry like flames from hell. 

Drew swore. Where was the fire brigade? Why, oh, _why_ did Sidlesmith have to have been built in the middle of the fucking mountains where towns and fire stations were so far away?

He wasn't thinking. His brain had switched into panic mode. His only thoughts were Harrison, Harrison, Harrison, and Harrison's in danger, Harrison could be hurt, _where, where, where is Harrison?_

He yanked his sweatshirt over his head.

"What are you _doing_? Hal screamed at his side. "You'll die in there!"

The roar of the fire was almost too loud to hear her.

"Harrison will die if someone doesn't go in there and rescue him!" Drew yelled.

A crowd of people were beginning to form around the building. People who had been too panicked to move to a safer spot in the shock of all the flames that were stretching impossibly high into the sky. People who had seen Drew run out from the crowd and followed him. People who had escaped from the dorm before the blaze got too difficult to navigate.

Who knows how many people were still in there, trapped amongst the flame while the fire brigade was nowhere to be found?

 _Harrison_ was nowhere to be found.

Drew wrapped his sweatshirt around his nose and mouth, tying the arms together behind his face to form a mask. Hal was screaming, yelling his name, begging him not to go, telling him to stop, but Drew didn't hear any of it. He wrenched his arm away from Hal and ran inside.

It was almost too hot and too smoky to bear. He dropped to his knees, crawling through as the flames roared around him, smoke pouring out of every crevice. Some of the windows had shattered, and has Drew crawled, he cut his fingers on broken glass, too focused on his mission to find Harrison and rescue him from the flames to feel the pain. He crawled and crawled through the building, but it was unrecognisable in this state. Harrison's room was on the second floor, so he made for the stairs. Even with his makeshift mask, it was hard to breathe. His eyes stung, from smoke and panicked tears, and he tried to focus on his breathing. If he let himself panic, he wouldn't find Harrison. He clambered up the stairs on his hands and knees.

"Harrison?" he called through the flaming hallway. "HARRISON? WHERE ARE YOU?"

Even if there had been an answer, Drew wouldn't have been able to hear it. It was so _loud_ inside, the fire bell trilling impossibly loud alongside the roaring flames and smoke. Drew coughed, briefly remembering a fact he'd learned about smoke usually being the one to kill in fires like this.

He pressed the sweatshirt to his face as tightly as he could manage, only moving it occasionally so he could scream Harrison's name. He pressed himself flat to the floor, army-crawling on his hands and knees to make it through the building. He'd made it up the stairs, now all he had to do was find Harrison's room. He kept crawling, his heart beating so fast in his chest, he was surprised that he was still breathing. Smoke was filling his eyes and his ears.

"HARRISON!" he called desperately, the smoke burning the inside of his nostrils. "PLEASE, HARRISON. WHERE ARE YOU?"

He kept crawling, trying to crane his head to see the numbers on the doors. Number three, four, five, _six_.

 _Yes_ , that was Harrison's room.

Drew's heart pounded as dread flooded his heart once more. Adrenaline alone kept him moving as he knelt up to open the door.

And there he was.

On the floor, pale-faced, bright pink hair noticeable even in the smoke. He was completely still, eyes shut tight.

He wasn't breathing.

"HARRISON!" Drew yelled, desperately crawling into the room to sit at Harrison's side.

In his panic, he'd forgotten everything he had once known about first aid. He didn't even know if Harrison was _alive._

He was so still. Unnaturally pale even covered in soot, and so, so impossible still.

"Harrison..." Drew pleaded, tears mixing with soot and smoke on his face. He shook Harrison's arms, took a filthy hand in his and kissed it. "Harrison, please. Say something. Wake up. _Please_." 

Harrison said nothing.

" _Harrison,_ " Drew wept, his throat sore from all the screaming he'd been doing. "Harrison..."

That dread that had been creeping down his spine and pooling in his heart suddenly roared in his chest, and then he was screaming, screaming Harrison's name.

Outside, he dimly registered the sound of a siren.

"Harrison," he said again, "come on. I'm getting you out of here. You're going to be alright; I swear. I will _make_ it so that you're alright."

He wrapped the sweatshirt back around his nose and mouth, leaning forward to slide a hand under Harrison's knees, another to brace around his back, lifting him into his arms.

"You're going to make it through this, do you hear me?" he screamed. "You're going to be alright."

He carried Harrison out of the room and back down towards the stairs. It was harder with Harrison in his arms. He couldn't keep down as low as before, and smoke had started to fill his lungs even with the sweatshirt covering his face. He couldn't stop coughing as he moved, stumbling down the stairs and crawling out towards the door, Harrison in his arms.

Hal met him at the door, tear-stained and screaming his name, a look of horror fixed upon her face as she saw the very still Harrison in Drew's arms. The fire brigade had arrived, along with an ambulance and before Drew could get a word in, Harrison was ripped from his arms by a paramedic. They were taking him away. They were taking Harrison away.

"Stop," Drew said, his voice a wheeze, stopping to cough. "You can't - you can't take him."

Another paramedic appeared at Drew's side, resting a hand on his shoulder. "We're going to take him to the hospital. He's going to be okay."

He didn't _look_ okay. They'd laid him onto a stretcher and were putting him onto the ambulance.

"I have to go with him! I have to make sure he's okay," Drew said, his voice wobbling, tears streaking his cheeks.

"We need to check you out first. Come sit down."

Drew protested, but Hal laid two hands on his shoulders and pushed him towards the second ambulance, making him sit down onto the step. Someone wrapped a blanket around Drew's shoulders.

"I have to go with him. You have to let me go with him!"

"You'll be joining him in a minute, you're going to need to get checked up for all that smoke you inhaled, and your hands."

Drew's gaze drifted down to his hands and seemingly for the first time, he noticed that his hands had been cut to ribbons. He'd barely noticed it before, but now they stung tremendously. He winced. 

The paramedic noticed this. "That's what I thought. That was a very foolish thing you did back there. You could have been killed."

"Harrison was in there," Drew said, firmly. "I had to go in there and get him."

"Boyfriend?"

Drew nodded.

"You were very brave," the paramedic said, "but next time, leave it to the professionals. You could have both got seriously hurt."

"He would have died if I hadn't gone in there," Drew said. 

"You could have both died."

Drew scowled. The panic was starting to fade somewhat, but that dread was still there. He hadn't seen Harrison take a breath. He hadn't seen Harrison open his eyes.

He didn't want Harrison to wake up alone in an ambulance without someone familiar there. 

The journey in the ambulance was stonily silent. Drew let himself be tested and grunted responses to the questions.

"I want to see Harrison when we get there," he said. "I have to know that he's okay."

"You can see him after you've been checked out by the doctor. Those are some nasty cuts on your hands, and you breathed in a lot of smoke. We may have to keep you in for observation."

Irritation sparked in Drew's chest. "I want to see him. I have to see him."

He continued like this all the way to the hospital. Inside, a nurse ran him through the same tests and asked him the same questions as he'd gone through on the ambulance.

"Where's Harrison?" he said, gruffly. That panic was back in his chest again. He felt like he might scream if they didn't let him see Harrison soon. "I need to see him."

The nurse lay a gentle hand on his shoulder. "He's doing fine, but we really need to make sure you're okay before we take you to see him. You could have done some serious damage to your lungs by inhaling all of that smoke."

"I don't care!" Drew snapped, something finally exploding inside of him. "I don't need any more stupid tests! I just need to see Harrison!"

The nurse pursed his lips. "I'll see what I can do," he said, and then swept away. 

It was still an agonisingly long wait while his hands were bandaged up, and the doctors ran through test after test to make sure he could breathe - Drew took a few exaggerated breaths in and out in his irritation - before they finally, _finally_ , took him to Harrison's room.

* * *

Harrison was pale and still in the bed, still filthy after all that time in the smoke. A lump had formed in Drew's throat, and after all that time he'd spent badgering doctors and nurses to let him come and see him, he was starting to hesitate. He didn't want to see Harrison looking like this - looking like he was dead.

Drew was beginning to wonder if maybe he actually _was_ dead, and the nurses had been lying to him. Harrison certainly didn't look very alive; he seemed much dimmer than his usual sunshine brightness. Even his pink hair looked pale and drab against the hospital bed sheets.

And then, Drew saw his shoulders and chest moving up and down, and then his eyes opening, and then Harrison was looking at him, a bright smile spreading across his face.

"Drew," Harrison said, his voice barely a rasp, eyes shining with tears. "There you are."

Relief flooded through Drew all at once at he took a step forward and almost fell across Harrison's bed. Harrison laughed - it was half the laugh Harrison usually had, but it was the most wonderful thing Drew had ever heard either way - and let out his hand. Drew took it, lacing their fingers together and pressing a kiss against Harrison's knuckles.

"I thought - I thought," Drew stumbled over his words. "I'm so happy that you're alive."

Harrison gave a small smile. "I hear I have you to thank for that."

Drew let out a breath, not quite a laugh, but almost there. "I was so scared. I was so afraid that you--"

Harrison reached out his hand to trace it across Drew's cheek. "I know, Drew. I know. But I'm here. I'm alive. I'm going to be okay. Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah," Drew said, letting out another breath, feeling that, _finally_ , his lungs were able to breathe. "I'm going to be okay now."

"Also, you should text Hal. My phone's been buzzing non-stop. I think she's really mad at you," Harrison said, a hint of a smile on his face.

"Yeah, I should do that," Drew said, but he made no move to reach for his phone. He just kept holding Harrison's hand tight in his, bending his forehead to press against Harrison's bed.

Harrison's hand found its way to Drew's hair, twisting through the brown curls. He gave a grimace. "You really, really need a shower."

The tension in Drew's chest lifted a little as he gave a laugh, brushing away a stray tear. "You're one to talk."

That trademark Harrison smirk curled across his face. "Maybe we could have one together."

"I don't think you're in any kind of a state for that," Drew said with a smile.

"You wait until we get home," Harrison said, and then his face fell. "My dorm room... All my stuff..."

"You can stay at mine," Drew said, quickly. "For as long as you want. Permanently, if you like." 

"I did notice that a lot of my stuff had been making its way there anyway," Harrison said.

Drew let out a huff and a smile. "I was hoping you'd get the hint."

“All you had to do was ask, Drew,” Harrison said, with a teasing smile. “I would have said yes.” 

Drew grinned, pressed another kiss to Harrison’s hand, and the two of them, together, took a breath.

* * *

“When you think about it,” Harrison said, a few days after they’d both been discharged from the hospital. “It was a very Sidlesmith thing to happen.”

They were sitting on Drew’s bed. Harrison had pretty much permanently moved in now, partially because his dorm room was unliveable, and partly because neither wanted to be too far apart from the other. Drew hadn’t said much about the incident, but he’d kept close ever since it happened, and a nurse at the hospital had told Harrison about how much of a storm he’d kicked up just to see him.

There had been moments every day since their confessions at the sock hop when Harrison had found himself marvelling at the depths of Drew’s heart, and this one had really taken the cake. Drew was braver than anyone he’d ever known, that much Harrison already knew, but he’d never expected Drew to risk his life to rescue him. It made his stomach feel like it was doing somersaults.

“What?”

“You, rescuing me from a burning building. Carrying me out in your arms,” Harrison said, dreamily, his hand fluttering to his forehead in a swoon. “I wish I had been there to see it.”

“It wasn’t fucking romantic.”

The sudden sharpness in Drew’s voice was like a knife edge. Harrison blinked and watched as Drew’s shaking fingers curled around the bed. His knees were pressed against his chest, chin rested on top of them. It was like he was trying to pull himself into himself, like he couldn’t get small enough. He looked younger somehow, like a little kid, not someone in their early twenties.

"You were so quiet and still," Drew said, staring at his hands, almost in a trance. "You were so quiet and still and you _weren't moving_. You weren't moving. I thought you were _dead._

There was a pain in his chest as he looked at Drew's pale face, his quivering hands, and the terrified way that Drew was looking at Harrison as if he expected him to disappear. Harrison thought about the last few days, how Drew had always been at his side, how he'd been lingering for just a little bit longer than necessary, how his hand had always been finding Harrison’s, how he'd looked slightly pained every time he looked Harrison's way.

" _Drew_ ," Harrison said softly, his voice barely a breath. "I didn't - I didn't mean—"

"They wouldn't let me see you. They just took you away and I didn't know if you were okay, and I kept replaying everything in my head over and over again and you weren't _breathing_ , you weren't—" Drew's ramble broke out into a loud sob that wracked his voice and made Harrison's heart twist.

"It's okay," Harrison whispered, taking Drew into his arms, and rocking him back and forth. "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay."

Drew's arms slid around Harrison's waist, holding him as tightly as possible as he buried his nose into Harrison's shoulder and let out a sob. "I was so scared."

"I know."

"From the moment I saw the smoke, I knew. I knew that something was wrong. When you weren't answering my texts, when I couldn't get you on the phone, I knew - I _knew_ that something had happened to you, I knew that something was wrong."

Drew was weeping openly now, and tears were slipping from Harrison's eyes too.

"I'm sorry," Harrison said, softly. "I'm so - I'm so sorry I put you through that."

"It wasn't your fault," Drew said, "you didn't start the fire."

"I wasn't even supposed to be there," Harrison said. "I was tired. I'd been up late writing that paper and then I had that 8am class, I was going to get coffee with Hal, but I told her I'd rather take a nap instead. If I'd been awake, maybe I'd have got out sooner, but when I woke up, the fire alarm was loud and there was smoke everywhere and I couldn't get the door open, and then— I don't remember much after that before I woke up in the ambulance."

Drew held Harrison close to his chest.

"I keep thinking,” Harrison continued, his voice shaking a little, “what if I'd had that coffee with Hal? what if it had taken me longer to get back to my room, what if I'd not fallen asleep so fast? None of this would have happened."

It was Harrison's turn to shudder, and he found that he was voicing thoughts he hadn't even dared let himself think. _What if?_

"None of that matters," Drew said. "The only thing that matters is that you got out. You're alive. You're safe with me and you're alive."

Harrison held onto Drew has hard as he was able. "I'm so sorry you had to go through all that," he said, "but I'm so, so thankful that you did. You saved my life, Drew."

Drew held him just as fiercely. "I'd do it again and again for you," he said, tilting Harrison's chin up to look at him. " _I love you._ "

Harrison pressed his head against Drew’s chest, saying one last thing before he lapsed into sobs he’d been holding back since the dorm went up in flames.

“I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at [bee-elzebub](https://bee-ezlebub.tumblr.com/) and on twitter at [@untakenbeepun](https://twitter.com/untakenbeepun)


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